POCKET SERIES -NO. 419 
Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius 

Life: Its Origin 
and Nature 

HEREWARD CARRINGTON, Ph. D. 



HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY 
GIRARD, KANSAS 




POCKET SERIES NO. 419 

Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius 


Life: Its Origin and 
Nature 

Here ward Carrington, Ph. D. 

Author of “The Coming Science,” “The Natural 
Food of Man,” “Vitality, Fasting and 
Nutrition,” Etc. 


HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY 
GIRARD, KANSAS 

C 



Copyright 1923, 
Haldeman-Julius Company 



DEC-1*23 


©cif ^ 63900 

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CONTENTS 


The Evolution of Matter. 5 

The O rigin o f Life . 9 

The Evolution of Life.18 

The Physical Basis of Life.20 

The Manifestations of Life..25 

The Regulators of Life.28 

Heredity .32 

The Nature of Life.36 

The Vehicle of Mind.41 

Life and Mind .44 

Life and Death.54 

Life’s Meaning and Destiny.58 













































LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 


THE EVOLUTION OF MATTER 

One of the greatest achievements of the mind 
of man is assuredly its ability to ascertain with 
almost mathematical exactitude the chemical 
composition of stars (or suns) many millions of 
miles distant from us in space. No human 
being has ever left the surface of our earth, to 
explore these heavenly bodies so distant from 
us in space that it takes tens of thousands of 
years for their light to reach us, traveling at 
the rate of 186,000 miles a second, nor will man 
ever be enabled to do so during his physical 
life. The light which left the surface of one 
of these heavenly bodies may reach us years 
after the body itself has “exploded” or gone out 
of existence; but it would appear to us still to 
be resident in space. By means of a tiny pencil 
of light, it is possible to ascertain the precise 
chemical constituents of any distant star, by 
means of spectrum analysis. Certain dark lines 
which appear at specific intervals on the light 
spectrum (after the latter has been broken up 
into its seven primary colors, by passing it 
through a prism) tell us the nature of the 
chemical elements constituting that star. Each 
chemical element is represented by a particular 
arrangement of the dark lines, and no two ele¬ 
ments are alike in this peculiarity. Any in¬ 
candescent body, composed of various chemical 
elements is, therefore, represented by the varied 
groupings of the lines thrown on the screen; 
and by studying these lines, the chemical ele- 


8 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

enee so far as its physical manifestation is con¬ 
cerned. The period, however, between these 
two extremes is ot course represented by many 
hundreds of millions of years. 

Newer researches have also proved that all 
matter, organic and inorganic, is composed of 
the same chemical elements, and that these ele¬ 
ments, in turn, are composed of atoms, which 
are in turn constituted of electrons. Each atom 
represents a miniature solar system, in which 
the negative “electrons” revolve in special orbits 
about the central “protons,” or positive electric 
charges. An electrical theory of matter has 
thus been deduced, which is applicable alike to 
living and non-living bodies. Living bodies are 
merely complex groups of molecules which, in 
turn, are combinations of atoms, which in turn 
are composed of electrons, etc. On this view, 
there is and can be no difference, ultimately, 
between living and so-called “dead” matter. 
Nevertheless, there is a great difference, for 
living matter embodies or expresses life, while 
dead matter does not. What is this “life?” 
What is the nature of the difference between 
living and non-living matter? That is one of 
the most fundamental and interesting problems 
of modern science, and the remainder of this 
little book will be devoted to an attempt to an¬ 
swer this question, as well as to portray some 
of the manifestations or evidences of this hidden 
and invisible life principle or energy. 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 


9 


THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 

From the foregoing discussion, it is evident 
that life, as we understand it, could not have 
existed from the very beginning of things on 
our planet. It must have come into being some¬ 
how or other at one time in the past, and it is 
equally certain that, at some distant date in 
the future^ it will go out of existence when the 
conditions on our planet no longer permit the 
existence of life upon its surface. Life can 
only exist between very narrow temperature- 
limits, and under a complex set or very par¬ 
ticular circumstances. The temperature-limits 
which permit physical life are the freezing and 
the boiling points of water. If the temperature 
permanently falls below or rises above these 
limits, life can no longer exist, and immediately 
passes out of being. As a matter of fact, for 
all practical purposes, the temperature limits 
are even narrower than this—being limited to 
about 100 degrees—above and below which life 
finds it extremely difficult to exist. In addi¬ 
tion to which the suitable environment must 
also be present—suitable atmospheric condi¬ 
tions, sufficient oxygen, sunlight, the right 
chemical elements, etc. 

During the many millions of years which 
must necessarily have elapsed between the time 
when our planet was a more or less incandes¬ 
cent body, and the time when it will have be¬ 
come a dead and frozen mass of matter whirling 
through space, a relatively brief period of time 
elapses, in the process of cooling, during which 
life can become manifest. It has therefore been 


10 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

said that, cosmically speaking, life is a mere 
“flash in the pan,” between two eternities, yet 
for us it is this “flash in the pan” which is 
everything. 

The question of the origin of life upon our 
planet is naturally of great interest, and is one 
which has been discussed at greater length than 
almost any other scientific problem. Various 
theories have been advanced in the past, rang¬ 
ing from the purely theological conception that 
life was imparted directly by some external 
Deity, as a special “act of creation,” to the 
materialistic view that life must somehow have 
come into being as the result of some process 
of spontaneous generation. A few of these 
theories I shall endeavor to summarize very 
briefly. 

The theory of spontaneous generation has not 
as yet received scientific support, and no proof 
exists that it ever occurs under the present cir¬ 
cumstances. Until the time of Pasteur, it was 
generally believed that it was more or less a 
common phenomenon, but Pasteur proved that 
the experiments which had been conducted in 
the past were inconclusive, and that no scienti¬ 
fic evidence existed tending to show that spon¬ 
taneous generation ever exists, as a matter of 
fact. Doctor Charlton Bastian, of England, con¬ 
ducted a number of experiments in an endeavor 
to prove that spontaneous generation could be 
brought about experimentally in the laboratory, 
and published a number of books, endeavoring 
to demonstrate this. Among these may be men¬ 
tioned “The Beginnings of Life,” in two 
volumes; “The Origin of the Lowest Organ- 


LIFE ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 11 

isms,” “The Nature and Origin of Living Mat¬ 
ter,” “The Origin of Life,” and “The Evolution 
of Life.” Experimental defects were proved to 
exist, however, in the majority of his experi¬ 
ments, and it is true that his work has not so 
far succeeded in convincing the scientific world. 
One fundamental difficulty which always pre¬ 
sents itself is this—all life as we know it is 
the product not only of certain chemical and 
physical forces, but also of heredity, and, on 
the theory of spontaneous generation, we must 
assume that the first living organisms some¬ 
how sprang into being without any hereditary 
characteristics at all. This is an enormous 
theoretical difficulty which has never been sur¬ 
mounted. Nevertheless, if experimental proof 
were ever offered, this objection would have 
to give way to the facts. 

Doctor J. Butler Burke, of Cambridge, Eng¬ 
land, some years ago published a book entitled 
“The Origin of Life,” in which he advanced the 
claim that he had been successful in producing 
a form of artificial life in test-tubes by means 
of radium and sterilizied bouillon. He called 
the resultant products RADIOBES. It was soon 
shown, however, that these radiobes did not 
multiply, and in fact showed almost none of 
the true signs of life. It was therefore con¬ 
cluded that he had not succeeded in creating 
life, but only life like bodies, which had a few 
of the outward manifestations of life. 

Another experimentalist who stoutly main¬ 
tained the theoretical possibility of spontaneous 
generation was Prof. Felix Le Dantec, of the 
University of Paris. In his book “The Nature 


12 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

and Origin of Life,” he attempted to show that 
living and non-living matter were by no means' 
fundamentally different in their characteristics; 
that they shaded into one another by degrees, 
and that many of the characteristics of life had 
been artificially demonstrated to exist in non¬ 
living bodies which had been “created” by 
purely chemical methods. This contention— 
that there existed no essential difference be¬ 
tween living and non-living matter—seemed to 
be borne-out by the ingenious researches of Prof. 
Chunder Bose, of the University of Calcutta, 
who showed that all substances manifest at 
least some of the phenomena of life, and that 
even metals are subject to fatigue, and need 
rest. Again it has been shown that some chemi¬ 
cal substances (for example, linseed oil) seem 
to possess a certain degree of memory; that the 
speed of its reaction to other substances in¬ 
creases from day to day, but that if a few days 
are allowed to intervene between the experi¬ 
ments, a longer time elapses before the reaction 
takes place, seeming to show that the linseed 
oil has, so to say, forgotten how to react in an 
appropriate manner. 

In spite of these many similarities, however, 
it is nevertheless true that great differences 
also exist between living and non-living sub¬ 
stances. For example, it has been contended 
that many of the characteristics of life are 
manifested by crystals, but Doctor McKendrick 
(in his “Principles of Physiology”) has pointed 
out that genuine living matter never assumes 
a crystal-like formation; and there is this 
further distinction, that, whereas crystals grow 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 13 

by “accretion,” or adding material to their own 
structure from the substance in which they 
are immersed, living substances grow by con¬ 
verting other substances into themselves by 
some process of “digestion.” Furthermore, cry¬ 
stals do not propagate, or reproduce themselves, 
in the true sense of the word. For these and 
other reasons, therefore, the idea that crystals 
are in any way analogous to living beings, has 
been largely given-up. 

Theoretically, some kind of spontaneous gen¬ 
eration, at one time or another in the world’s 
history, must have taken place, in order for life 
to become manifest at all; and yet science can 
find no proof of its occurring today. It has been 
suggested that, under differing chemical, ther¬ 
mal and atmospheric conditions—which may 
have existed upon this planet millions of years 
ago^-but which are today non-existent, 
some form of spontaneous generation may 
have been possible. However, it seems 
plausible to assume that any artificial condi¬ 
tions of the kind should be capable of being 
reproduced in the laboratory today. Yet, as be¬ 
fore stated, no adequate experimental proof 
exists that spontaneous generation ever takes 
place, in t«he true sense of the word. Since life 
seemingly could not have been spontaneously 
produced upon our planet, therefore, other 
theories were advanced in an attempt to account 
for its presence. 

There is the theory, for example, first ad¬ 
vanced by a French writer, Count Salles-Guyon, 
and defended by F. Cohn, H. Richter, Helmholtz 
and Lord Kelvin (being, in fact, made known 


14 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

to the English-speaking world by the last-men¬ 
tioned scientist, and the idea commonly credited 
to him, thougn this is a mistake) that life never 
had any “beginning” on our planet. 

“It was transported to the earth from another 
world, or from the cosmic environment, under the 
form of cosmic germs, or cosmozoans, more or less 
comparable to the living cells with which we are 
acquainted. They have made the journey either 
included in meteorites or floating in space in the 
form of cosmic dust.” 

But M. Verworn considers the hypothesis of 
cosmic germs as inconsistent with the laws of 
evolution, and L. Errera pointed out that the 
necessary conditions for life were lacking in 
interplanetary bodies. 

Dubois-Reymond’s theory of cosmic pansper¬ 
mia is one very similar to the above, and needs 
no separate statement of its position. The same 
objection applies to both, viz., that it is really 
no “explanation” at all, since it merely pushes 
back our inquiry one step, and, if we were to 
ask: “What was the origin of the life on the 
planet or in the space from which such germs 
came, supposedly, we should obviously be in as 
great a quandary as ever. So superficial a 
hypothesis is not only not explanatory, but 
absurd. Realizing such objection, W. Preyer was 
forced to admit that “Life . . . must have 

subsisted from all time, even when the globe 
was an incandescent mass.” This position— 
apart from its inherent absurdity—practically 
admits that life was and is as eternal and per¬ 
sistent as matter and energy; and this is the 
position which scientists will, I think, some 
day be forced to admit. 


15 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

Doctor Benjamin Moore, in his work on the 
“Origin and Nature of Life,” has pointed out 
that “the spontaneous production ,of any such 
a thing as a bacterium or other unicellular or¬ 
ganism, would by no means solve the problem, 
since the new-born cell would have no organic 
pabulum, and must perish (in a world in which 
there is yet no life). The production of any¬ 
thing so complex as chlorophyll at such a stage 
is unthinkable to anyone acquainted with the 
subtle continuity of all nature. In such a world, 
inorganic colloids must first develop, and in 
time one of these must begin to evolve, not a 
living cell, not anything so complex as a micro¬ 
coccus, or a bacillus, not even a complex pro¬ 
tein, carbohydrate, or fat, but some quite simple 
form of organic molecule, holding a higher 
store of chemical energy than the simple inor¬ 
ganic bodies from which it was formed. To 
carry out such a function, the inorganic colloid 
must posses the property of transforming sun¬ 
light or some other form of radiant energy into 
chemical energy. Later, such simple organic 
compounds, by the agency of the same, or some 
other colloid, and with a supply of external 
energy, would begin to condense and form more 
complex organic molecules, and finally com¬ 
plexes of indrganic and organic matter would 
come into existence as crystallo-colloids. In this 
way, without any hiatus, life would be led-up-to 
and inaugurated.” 

This view is somewhat different than that 
maintained by Doctor Henry Fairfield Osborn, 
who, in his work, “The Origin and Evolution 
of Liie,” advances the following theory: 


16 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

“In their power of finding energy or food in 
a lifeless world, the bacteria known as proto¬ 
trophic or ‘primitive feeders,’ are not only the 
simplest known organisms, but it is probable 
that that represent the survival of a primordial 
stage of life chemistry. These bacteria derive 
both their energy and their nutrition directly 
from inorganic chemical compounds: such 
types were thus capable of living and flourish¬ 
ing on the lifeless earth even before the advent 
of continuous sunshine, and long before the 
first chlorophyllic stage (algae) of the evolu¬ 
tion of plant life. Among such bacteria, possi¬ 
bly surviving from archseozoic time, is one of 
these ‘primitive feeders,’ namely, the nitroso 
monas of Europe. For combustion, it takes in 
oxygen directly through the intermediate action 
of iron, phosphorus, or manganese, each of the 
single cells being a powerful little chemical 
laboratory which contains oxidizing catalyz¬ 
ers, the activity of which is accelerated by the 
presence of iron and manganese. Still in the 
primordial stage, nitroso monas lives on ammo¬ 
nium sulphate, taking its energy (food) from 
the nitrogen of ammonium, and forming 
nitrites. Living symbiotically with it is nitro 
bacter, which takes its energy (food) from the 
nitrites formed by nitroso monas , oxidizing 
them into nitrates. Thus these two species il¬ 
lustrate in its simplest form our law of the 
interaction of an organism with its life en¬ 
vironment.” 

By way of analogy, it has of course been 
pointed out that plants derive their nutriment 
directly from inorganic substances, and con- 


17 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

vert them into the living plant. Animals do 
not and cannot subsist directly upon inorganic 
substances. They must derive them indirectly 
either through plants or the tissues of other 
animals, which in turn have fed upon plants. 
In this way, inorganic substances are supplied 
to the body, but animals cannot directly appro¬ 
priate inorganic substances of any kind. Plants 
do so, and we seem to have here a case in 
which inorganic matter is converted into living 
substance, and in a certain sense, therefore, life 
produced from not-life. There is, however, 
this point: that the vegetable or plant merely 
feeds in this manner, and is in no way origin¬ 
ally generated by the food of which it partakes. 
The plant originated from another plant, so 
that the laws of heredity apply to it directly, 
as before pointed out, and it is not, strictly 
speaking, an example of spontaneous genera¬ 
tion at all. 

The life of any individual only begins, of 
course, in the union of the sexual elements 
derived from the parents, and the above dis¬ 
cussion has been limited to the ultimate origin 
of life upon our planet. Further, it is now 
known that many unicellular organisms do not 
multifly by sexual conjugation at all. They 
multiply by “fission,” a mother-cell splits into 
two daughter cells, which, when they have 
grown to the normal size, again divide,—and 
so on forever. There is never any normal 
death among these lower orders of being, and 
there has never been any sexual conjugation to 
initiate them. The problem therefore remains 
as to their origin, together with the problem of 


18 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

the origin of all other living matter; and it 
may be said that this problem remains today 
unsolved, and remains one of the most baffling 
problems of modern science. Once life has be¬ 
gun, its gradual evolution into more and more 
complex and highly developed forms is conceiv¬ 
able, but the question of its ultimate origin re¬ 
mains today still shrouded in mystery. 

THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE 

Ever since the time of Charles Darwin, the 
concept of evolution has been more or less a 
commonplace in the minds of thinking men. 
We know that higher forms of life have grad¬ 
ually evolved from more lowly and simpler 
forms. The fact of evolution, however, does 
not necessitate any particular theory as to how 
evolution ivories. The particular theory of ev¬ 
olution propounded by Darwin has now been 
supplemented or changed by newer researches, 
but the causes of evolution are to a great ex¬ 
tent as mysterious as ever. Lamarck, Darw'in, 
Weisman, and others, have propounded theories 
of their own, based on the principle of slow 
progress, involving no essential "break,”— 
whereas De Vries, as we know, in his theory 
of mutation, has advanced the idea that a series 
of sudden or abrupt changes is quite possible, 
and is, in fact, to be observed today in many 
cases of plants and, to a lesser extent, even m 
the lower forms of animal life. 

However evolution may be thought to 
operate, the fact of evolution is certain. As 
a matter of fact, there are various evolutions 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 19 

which are at work all at once. Osborn has 
contended that there are four evolutions pro¬ 
ceeding simultaneously, which are somehow 
adjusted to one another. He says:- 

“In the process of the origin and early 
evolution of life, complexes of four greater 
and lesser energy-groups arise, namely: In¬ 
organic environment ,—the energy content in 
the sun, the earth, the water, and the air; or¬ 
ganisms: —the energy of the individual, devel¬ 
oping and changing the cells and tissues of the 
body, including that part of the germ which 
enters every cell; heredity-germ :—the energies 
of the heredity-substance (heredity-chromatin) 
concentrated in the reproductive cells of con¬ 
tinuous and successive generations, as well as in 
the cells and tissues of the organism; and life 
environment: —beginning with the monads and 
algae and ascending in a developing scale 
of plants and animals.” 

Evolution assures us that the quality of life 
is constantly improving. Is the quantity of life 
commensurately increasing? We know that it 
must be, in view of the fact that the number 
of living creatures upon the earth is continually 
increasing, as they multiply by reproduction. 
Life, both in quantity and quality, is, therefore 
continually expanding. This fact gives rise to 
a very significant thought. Although the law 
of the Conservation of Energy is probably true, 
it is also true that all modes of energy are not 
of equal value; some of them are higher than 
others, and the lower cannot readily be convert¬ 
ed into the higher, although the higher give 
rise to the lower. There is, therefore, a law 


20 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

of the “degradation of energy,” as there is a 
law of its conservation. Dr. Gustav Le Bon 
has gone so far as to assert (in his “Evolu¬ 
tion of forces”) that all energy is ultimately 
being resolved into heat, which is being radiat¬ 
ed into space, and thus ultimately lost, for all 
practical purposes. 

Now life, as we know it, is one of the high¬ 
est and most complex forms of energy known 
to us,—and this, as we have seen, is constantly 
being infused into the world as the population 
increases,—and hence a constant addition is 
being made to the highest form of energy 
known to us. From this it would appear that 
an effort is being made to replenish energy, as 
it is being dissipated or lost, so that the total 
amount of energy is constantly preserved, as 
new life is infused. This significant fact has 
not, so far as I am aware, been emphasized in 
the past; but, if true, it is assuredly a truth of 
no little significance. The tendency of evolu¬ 
tion is, therefore, to increase and improve life 
in all its forms. What is the object of this? 
To what purpose? The answer to this question 
will be briefly discussed in the chapter devoted 
to “Life’s Meaning and Destiny.” 

THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 

Whatever theory we may hold as to the na¬ 
ture of life, it is certainly true that it manifests 
through a physical body, in this physical uni¬ 
verse in which we live. Whether life originates 
within that body, and is merely the product 
of its functional activities,—or whether it is 
some principle which manifests through it,— 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 21 

is a question for future research to decide. The 
fact remains, however, that life manifests 
through such a body, and that this body is the 
product of evolution and heredity on one hand, 
and of a combination of elements, on the other, 
—which elements are constantly being replaced, 
as the various tissues and organs of the body 
are repaired and replaced by the foou material 
eaten. 

The matter of which our bodies are composed 
must be the same matter, in its ultimate anal¬ 
ysis, as all other matter in the universe. It has 
been contended e. g. that life originated in the 
sea, or at least in shallow pools which had 
been left after the sea had receded to a cer¬ 
tain extent,—leaving the water more or less 
stagnant. It is a significant fact, in this con¬ 
nection, that precisely the same chemical ele¬ 
ments are contained in living human beings as 
are contained in sea-water. These elements 
are: sodium, calcium, magnesium, potassium, 
chlorine, sulphur, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen 
and iron. The composition of the air is nitro¬ 
gen, oxygen and carbon. The elements contain¬ 
ed in living matter are these identical things! 
It has been suggested that, at the time when 
life was supposed to have originated upon our 
planet, the air was more or less saturated with 
carbon, and that this element, one of those es¬ 
sential for all life,—was largely instrumental 
in rendering possible the original “creation” of 
living matter. 

A great deal of work has been done, of late 
years, in the field of organic chemistry—that 
is to say, the chemistry of living plants and an- 


22 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

imals. While it is true that the body-substance 
of all living things is composed of the chemical 
elements known to us, it is also true that these 
chemical elements are combined together in ex¬ 
tremely complex forms—far more complex than 
anything else known to us. To take one ex¬ 
ample: the haemoglobin of blood. A molecule 
of haemoglobin must contain the following 
number of different atoms in their due propor¬ 
tions, viz., of hydrogen atoms, 1,130; of car¬ 
bon atoms, 712; of nitrogen, 214; of oxygen, 
245; of sulphur, 2 and of iron, 1, or 2,304 atoms 
in all. Moreover, if that one atom of iron, in 
its peculiar relation to the rest (“masked,” as 
some physiologists say) were left out, the ani¬ 
mal could neither absorb oxygen nor give off 
carbonic acid,—in other words, it could not 
breathe* How such a combination of atoms 
could have been brought together by mere 
chance is in itself an extraordinary phenom¬ 
enon, which needs considerable explanation! 

The various chemical elements are combined 
organically into more and more complex 
groups, and as this process of building-up 
simple into complex substances proceeds, en¬ 
ergy tends to become “latent,”—which energy 
is, in turn, liberated when these complex sub¬ 
stances are later on broken-down into their 
more simple constituents. The latent pnergy 
Is then liberated and converted into active or 
“kinetic” energy. 

The human body is composed of a variety of 
substances, all more or less complex in char¬ 
acter, of which protoplasm is the representa¬ 
tive and typical example. But protoplasm itself 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 23 

is a highly complex substance, and is, in turn, 
built up of a number of complex compounds. 
Recent researches have shown that life depends 
upon the presence of basic “colloids” as they 
are called,—known as colloidal substances or 
solutions. Colloids are gummy, semi-fluidic 
substances, which may be either organic or in¬ 
organic in nature. A typical example of the 
latter would be gum arabic. A c ystalloid, on 
the other hand, would be exemplified by a solu¬ 
tion of common salt. 

Colloids show two distinct forms of molecular 
arrangement, known respectively as “hydro- 
sols” and “hydrogels.” Thus a solution of glue 
or gelatine at such a temperature that it is 
fluid and mobile is a hydrosol; at a lower (or 
higher) temperature it sets into a solid jelly, 
and is then a hydrogel.. The white of an egg 
(uncooked) would be a good example of 
an organic hydrosol. When it is cooked, how¬ 
ever, it is converted into a hydrogel. 

The living body, as we know, is built up of 
proteins, fats, carbohydrates, water, and minute 
traces of various “salts,” in organized form. 
These various substances are supplied to the 
body in the form of food, are constantly being 
converted into bodily substances by the various 
processes of digestion. Carbohydrates are con¬ 
verted into fats; glycerine and soaps are form¬ 
ed in the body; various amino-acids are formed, 
new proteins are developed, and in fact the 
substances which we eat are converted and re¬ 
converted, in the body, into a number of sub¬ 
substances, before they are finally utilized. A 
great deal of work has been done in the past, 


24 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

in attempts to discover the precise nature of 
these various transformations; but the dis¬ 
cussion of these detailed chemical questions 
would take us too far afield. The interested 
reader may be referred to such books as Prof. 
Chittenden’s “The Nutrition of Man,” and P. 
Czapek’s “Chemical Phenomena of Life.” 

The mechanistic view of life is merely that 
physico-chemical reactions are alone sufficient 
to account for the life of the cell, and that 
the life of the organism is composed, as it were, 
of the totality of these cell-lives. It is difficult 
to see, however, how such a unifying of cell- 
lives could take place, unless there were some 
unifying principle or force, uniting these many 
lives into one —some “key-stone of the arch” 
which bound them together into a single living 
organism, such as we know it. This difficulty 
is still further exemplified by death, for here 
the lives of the individual cells continue for 
some time, and yet we say that such a person 
is “dead.” It appears, at such times, as though 
the central, unifying principle had departed, 
leaving the cells of the body to die individual¬ 
ly, in their own good time. We have discussed 
this question more fully, however, in the vol¬ 
ume in this series devoted to the problem of 
“Death.” 

The body which we inhabit is intricate and 
beautiful almost beyond imagination. The com¬ 
plexity of its constituents, the marvelous inter¬ 
play of its organs and functional activities, the 
beauty of its regulating mechanisms, the intric¬ 
acy of its nervous system, the miracles of di¬ 
gestion, the subtlety of our sense organs, the 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 25 

totally unexplained phenomenon of conscious¬ 
ness—all inspire us with wonder and awe, and 
make us realize the countless thousands of gen¬ 
erations which must have existed in order to 
render possible such a perfected piece of mech¬ 
anism, by the processes of gradual evolution. 

THE MANIFESTATIONS OF LIFE 

One of the most characteristic functions of 
life is its incessant tendency to express itself 
and to reproduce itself. Anyone who has sat 
on a grassy bank in the early spring, and has 
watched the young blades of grass shoot up 
from the soil, cannot but have been struck 
by the constant urge on the part of life thus to 
express itself, whenever the conditions of life 
were such as to render its manifestation pos¬ 
sible. From apparently barren soil, from be¬ 
tween clefts in a rock, plant life emerges. 
Thousands of insects and tiny animals are 
found everywhere, and over the whole surface 
of the earth swarm millions of invisible bac¬ 
teria. Why should there be this persistent 
effort oh the part of nature? To what end? 
This is a question which we will discuss in the 
chapter dealing with life’s meaning and destiny. 
For the present, I wish merely to emphasize the 
constant activity and the constant desire for 
growth and reproduction by life of every 
variety. 

Life is active; it is dynamic. It is not a 
static thing; it moves. And this movement is 
one of the characteristics of life. We are ac¬ 
customed to think of “dead” matter as that 
which does not move of itself, but is only 


26 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

displaced by some external energy outside it¬ 
self. Whenever matter moves, we are ac¬ 
customed to think of it as alive. This habit of 
mind has, of course, sprung from a very 
primitive belief that “spirits’” were behind all 
the phenomena of nature, and that whatever 
happened was due to the intelligent action of 
these spirits. We still have traces of these 
primitive ideas, and we sometimes endow with 
a certain degree of personality dead matter, 
which does not appear to behave as we think 
it should. Thus, we frequently swear at and 
kick a chair or a cushion over which we have 
stumbled, as though it were an intelligent 
being; and a horse will shy at a piece of paper 
blown along the road. These animistic actions 
show us the primitive origin of our belief that 
living matter—and living matter only—is that 
which moves by reason of some internal and 
mysterious energy which actuates it from 
within. 

These manifestations of life are very marked 
in the living, human body. Its internal func¬ 
tions and activities are all dynamic. Muscular 
activity of all kinds is, of course, an active 
manifestation of life-energy. Even the pro¬ 
cesses of thought involve the idea of movement; 
and we know that Bergson has emphasized the 
idea that life is a jconstant “flow” and an inces¬ 
sant activity. Huxley has also compared life 
to a swirling and flowing river. 

These periods of active expression alternate, 
however, with periods of relative quiet, during 
wlrich the activities of life are not outwardly 
manifest. Thus, during sleep, when the body 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND MATURE 


21 


is in some way recharged by energy—fitting 
it for the next day’s work—outward mani¬ 
festations of life are lacking; but even here, 
certain internal mechanisms of the body 
(respiration, digestion, circulation, etc.) are 
active, but at a lower level. Muscular activity 
does not, curiously enough, wear out the parts 
utilized, but, on the contrary, strengthens and 
invigorates them. The more energy we expend 
in this way (within certain limits) the more 
we receive. Life and love are thus to some 
extent analogous; for, in the latter case also, 
“the more freely we give the more freely do we 
receive.” 

Up to a certain point, the activities of life are 
healthful; beyond that point, they become de¬ 
structive. This is very obvious to us in the 
case of muscular activities. When muscles are 
exercised, a greater volume of blood is de¬ 
termined to these parts, which are thus fed, 
while impurities are carried away into the gen¬ 
eral blood-stream. When fatigue has once begun 
to supervene, however, these impurities begin 
to collect at a faster rate than they can be 
eliminated. A fatigued muscle is a poisoned 
muscle. It has been*shown that a muscle may 
be washed-out, by means of salt water, and the 
fatigue removed, so that the muscle is as 
vigorous as ever. There are, however, two 
kinds of fatigue; (1) purely muscular fatigue, 
and (2) nervous exhaustion, which results from 
the depletion of the nervous energies in the 
nerve-cells or centres. 

The most obvious of these manifestations of 
life is, of course, muscular activity, for here 


28 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

physical movement is involved, which can 
readily be perceived by other individuals. Life, 
however, may be intensely active, without any 
visible expression of such activity. For ex¬ 
ample, a person may sit still in a chair, and 
think intently. Great activity may be going on 
within the brain. But this is totally invisible 
to a bystander. Life itself is always invisible, 
and we merely infer its presence by reason of 
certain physical activities, which are visible 
or manifest to us. But this is by no means a 
just criterion. A man may be paralyzed, and 
yet intently alive within himself. He merely 
lacks the means for physical expression, in the 
material world, of this life-activity. Thought 
and emotion also represent active manifesta¬ 
tions of life, but they are invisible, or hidden. 

One of the most characteristic factors of life 
is its desire to perpetuate itself. The stream of 
life must be perpetuated, even if the individual 
perishes! This is seen in many of the lower 
organisms which perish at the very moment 
that active reproduction has been accomplished. 
Among the manifestations of life, we must 
therefore include this remarkable desire to per¬ 
petuate and to reproduce* itself. Next to self- 
preservation, it is the most powerful force in 
animate nature. 

THE REGULATORS OF LIFE 

The life of the body is not a blind force. It 
acts toward certain “ends.” When actions are 
performed in the body, they are for a specific 
purpose. In this sense, all life is “teleological;” 
it acts towards a specific end and with a 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 25* 

specific purpose. Modern science, however, does 
not believe that these teleological actions in¬ 
volve any theological interpretation. They 
represent, merely, the purposeful manifestations 
of life, which are beneficial to the organism, 
and, if it were not for these, the living body 
would soon die, and the race would become 
extinct. There is some mechanism (or mechan¬ 
isms) within the body, therefore, which regu¬ 
lates its activities, and causes every cell and 
tissue to perform its proper functions. What 
is the nature of this mechanism? 

Briefly, there are two such mechanisms with 
in the body, which control its functions and 
activities. These are (1) the ductless glands, 
and (2) the nervous system. 

(1) Our knowledge concerning the functions 
of the ductless glands is relatively new. Within 
the past few years, it has been ascertained that 
there are, within the body, various ductless 
glands, of which the principal ones are the 
following: (a) The thyroid gland. This gland 
secretes a substance called “thyroxin,” which 
controls, to a large extent, the growth of spe¬ 
cialized organs and tissues—especially those of 
brain and sex. It is also the gland of energy- 
production. (b) The pituitary gland. This is 
divided into two parts, (1) the anterior, and 
(2) the posterior. The anterior portion secretes 
a substance known as “tethalin,” which con¬ 
trols the growth of the skeleton and its sup¬ 
porting tissues. The posterior portion of the 
gland secretes a substance known as “pituitrin,” 
which seems to control the growth and func¬ 
tional activity of the nerve and involuntary 


30 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

muscle cells, and affects the brain and sex tone, 
(c) The adrenals. These are the glands of com¬ 
bat, and are stimulated whenever the fighting 
instinct is brought into play. The adrenals are 
subdivided into two portions, (1) the “cortex,” 
secreting a substance as yet unknown, but which 
seems to affect the growth of the brain and the 
sex glands. (2) The “medulla,” secreting 
“adrenalin,” which substance imparts to the 
body energy for emergency situations, (d) The 
pineal gland. The precise nature of its secre¬ 
tion is unknown, but it seems to control the 
development of pubity, and affect brain and sex 
development, (e) The thymus gland. This is 
the gland of childhood; the nature of its secre¬ 
tion is as yet unknown. It seems to prevent 
too rapid maturity, and gradually disappears 
after pubity. (f) The gonads, or sexual glands. 
These, apart from their obvious functions, seem 
to govern the excitability of muscle and nerve, 
and also to control, to a great extent, the lime 
metabolism in the body, (g) The pancreas. 
This gland secretes a substance known as “in- 
suline,” and controls the sugar metabolism of 
the body. 

It has been contended by certain authors 
( e. g., Dr. Louis Berman, in his book “The 
Glands Regulating Personality”) that the duct¬ 
less glands, in addition to these purely 
physiological functions, also control, to a great 
extent, the character of the mental or psychic 
life; and that one’s temperament, moods, 
emotions, and even the very personality itself is 
to a large extent governed and controlled by the 
activities and secretions of these glands. There 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 31 

is doubtless some truth in these views, but it 
is probable that such a theory is an extreme 
view of the case, and that such a theory must 
necessarily be modified by later research. This 
interpretation is, of course, in line with a purely 
mechanistic conception of life, and will either 
stand or fall with it. 

The other controller, or regulatng mechanism, 
of the human body is the nervous system , our 
knowledge of which is much older. It may 
roughly be divided into various sub-divisions. 
There are: (a) the “cerebrum,” or brain proper, 
which is the recipient of our sense impressions, 
the originator of many conscious motor im¬ 
pulses, and the seat, apparently, of association 
and consciousness. Behind and below this 
complicated organ, there is the “cerebellum,” 
which is a regulating mechanism, and serves 
to coordinate our movements. Below this, 
again, is the “spinal cord,” with its pairs of 
branching nerves, sensory and motor (i. e., 
nerves of sensation, and nerves of action) 
which largely control the activities of the body. 
In addition to this entire so-called “cerebro¬ 
spinal” system, there is also the “sympathetic” 
nervous system, which controls, very largely, 
the internal activities or functions of the 
various bodily organs—digestion, circulation, 
etc. By means of these mechanisms, which are 
interacting, and influence and control one an¬ 
other, the entire activites of the body are car¬ 
ried on in what appears to us an automatic 
manner, so that the mind is left entirely free 
to conduct, unhampered, the operations of con¬ 
sciousness. 


32 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

Practically all the activities of the body are 
in this way regulated without our conscious in¬ 
tervention, and only conscious muscular activity 
calls for the exercise of directive thought. It 
i& a beautiful and complicated system which 
brings home to us the degree to which the 
human body has evolved and perfected itself 
(or has been perfected) through countless cen¬ 
turies of gradual progress. It would almost 
seem as though the object of life had been to 
perfect a physical vehicle to such a degree that 
it no longer interfered with the operations of 
thought and consciousness, which could thus be 
carried on, in their own sphere of activity, 
quite independently of the body, and without 
being hampered or interfered with by the latter. 
Whether or not this view of the case has any 
ultimate significance will, of course, depend 
upon our outlook upon life, i. e., whether we 
consider that it has a spiritual “meaning” or 
not. The facts, at all events, might easily be 
interpreted in this manner. 

HEREDITY 

One of cxxe most striking and characteristic 
manifestations of life is its power to reproduce 
itself, and to pass on to succeeding generations 
the bodily form and psychic peculiarities 
which that particular form of life possesses. 
This is known to us as Heredity. All life thus 
tends to reproduce itself, and, apart from slight 
variations, runs “true to type.” Because of 
heredity, the characteristics of any given animal 
(say) is maintained, and it resembles its par¬ 
ents. Half its life characteristics are inherited 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE S3 

from each parent; one quarter from each grand¬ 
parent; one eighth from each of its great-grand¬ 
parents—and so on forever backwards into the 
generations of the past. Each one of us, there¬ 
fore, represents a compound of all the gener¬ 
ations which have preceded us. We are, so to 
say, a composite photograph resulting from all 
of them. 

Very obviously, the body is thus subject to 
heredity; less obviously the mind. Prof. Ribot 
has, however, brought forward a mass of evi¬ 
dence, tending to show that mind is also sub¬ 
ject to this immutable law, in his work on 
“Heredity.” Environment and heredity are gen¬ 
erally conceded to be the two great factors 
which go to the moulding of any individual. 

Whether or not “acquired characteristics” are 
thus hereditary has been the subject of acute 
and prolonged controversy. Of late years, the 
tendency has been to disbelieve in such a pos¬ 
sibility, but recent researches have again given 
plausibility to this idea, and there is a tendency 
among certain biologists to swing in favor of 
this belief. 

How does heredity operate? It is now thought 
that there is a physical basis for heredity— 
this physical basis being the so-called “germ- 
plasm.” This germ-plasm is composed of germ 
cells, and in each cell is a nucleus. Within 
this nucleus are tiny thread-like bodies, known 
as “chromosomes.” These are the real carriers 
of heredity. There are a certain and definite 
number of these chromosomes (or idants), 
which vary in different animals and plants. 
These chromosomes, in turn, consist of “ids,” 


34 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

each of which is thought to contain a complete 
inheritance. Each id consists of numerous 
primary constituents or “determinants.” A 
determinant is usually a group of so-called 
“biophors,”—the minutest vital units known to 
us. The biophor in turn is an integrate of nu¬ 
merous chemical molecules. 

It will thus be seen that the mechanism of 
heredity is an exceedingly complex phenomenon 
which is only what we should expect, in view of 
the complexity of life itself. The great puzzle 
is how all the potentialities of a living being 
can be crowded into the microscopic particles 
which form the physical basis of heredity. The 
character of the offspring depends (as J. 
Arthur Thompson points out, in his work on 
“Heredity”), upon the adjustments arrived at 
among the different sets of determinants of 
paternal and maternal origin. 

There are those, however, who refuse to see, 
in these microscopic units more than the 
physical counterparts of life itself. It has been 
contended that life is something over and above 
matter, and that heredity is really carried in 
some super-physical realm, (a sort of “astral” 
heredity), and that the physical bearers of 
heredity known to us represent, merely, the 
physical vehicles for this life-energy—in much 
the same way that the human brain is the 
material instrument of thought and conscious¬ 
ness Whether such a view of the case appears 
plausible will depend, of course, upon the view 
we take of the universe. If any super-physical 
realm be admitted, such a view is actually neces¬ 
sitated, while from the purely mechanistic 


35 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

standpoint, such an idea would appear quite 
superfluous, if not absurd. This question, like 
so many others, will only be settled by the 
determination of the ultimate nature of life. 

All life thus originates within a single, micro¬ 
scopic cell. Growth takes place by reason of 
continued cell-multiplication. This multiplica¬ 
tion results from division (!); that is to say, 
the division of the mother cell into two daugh¬ 
ter cells, which in turn sub-divide, and so on 
throughout the entire life of the organism. 

When studied by means of high-powered mi¬ 
croscopes, the cell is seen to contain within its 
plasm a nucleus, and within this a still smaller 
point, known as the “nucleolus.” A so-called 
“attraction sphere” is also seen, consisting of 
two tiny points, which divide, descend to 
opposite sides of the nucleus, and send out lines 
of force, seemingly very similar to those 
observed at the ends- of a magnet; and these 
lines of force arrange the thread-like chromo¬ 
somes into parallel lines, which then divide 
lengthwise, and are drawn towards the tiny cen¬ 
ters of force (centrosomes)—being there re¬ 
arranged, to form the bases for two new cells. 
This process is known as “Mitosis” (or kar- 
yokinesis), and has been studied in great detail 
in its various phases. The reader may con¬ 
sult the elaborate work by Prof. E. B. Wilson, 
“The Cell,” for details. 

By means of this cell-division, therefore, 
cells multiply in number; they are built-up 
into tissues, into organs, into a complete human 
body. In the simpler forms of life, these 
various processes may be followed with com- 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

parative ease, but in more highly developed 
forms of life, the problem is correspondingly 
difficult. The task of passing-on life is then 
consigned to definite units of living matter, 
which are forever passed onward through suc¬ 
ceeding generations, while the great mass of 
bodily matter is cast-off as of no further use, 
at death. 

THE NATURE OF LIFE 

Every animal and vegetable has its own par¬ 
ticular variety of life. The life of a cabbage 
is entirely different from that of a fox-terrier, 
and this, in turn, is very different from the life 
of man. Cabbages tend to reproduce cabbages 
and fox-terriers, fox-terriers. It would appear, 
therefore, that there are as many varieties of 
life-energy, as there are plants, animals, in¬ 
sects, etc., in the entire world, and that these 
varieties of life-energy cannot interchange one 
with another, or vary from their original pat¬ 
tern to any great extent. All life may ultimately 
be one, but in its expression, it assumes many 
forms, aspects, or manifestations. 

The life-energy of the human body was called 
its “vitality” by the older writers. They as¬ 
sumed that life was an energy different from 
all other energies in the world, and in no way 
related to them. This was the doctrine of 
“vitalism,” which is still maintained by certain 
eminent biologists. Hans Driesch, Bergson, 
James, Minot, and others have ably defended 
the vitalistic theory, while the majority of 
physiologists are inclined to accept a mechan¬ 
istic interpretation of life—contending that life 
is merely one of the modes or expressions of 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 37 

energy, and as such subject to the law of con¬ 
servation. We have already touched upon this 
question, briefly, in the chapter dealing with the 
origin of life. 

There is undoubtedly an equivalence which 
can be roughly measured between the energy- 
content of food consumed, and the energy ex¬ 
pended by the body in its various activities. The 
analogy usually employed is that of the steam 
engine. Here a certain amount of coal (fuel) 
is consumed, which supplies a certain amount 
of heat and energy during its combustion. 
Similarly, it is claimed, a certain amount of 
fuel (food) is supplied to the human body, and 
heat and energy are likewise imparted during 
the period of its oxidation and combustion. 

This equivalence has been proved to exist in 
the human body by means of an instrument 
known as a “calorimeter.” The living subject 
is inclosed within a small cabin-like space, 
and the heat and energy output of the body 
are accurately measured by means of delicate 
registering instruments, the amount of carbon 
dioxide, heat, etc., being thus determined. 

The usually accepted view is that the latent 
energy of the food is imparted to the body, 
which expends it in various internal and ex¬ 
ternal nervous and muscular activities. There 
is, however, an Alternative theory, which may 
be advanced, and which has in fact been de¬ 
fended by the present writer and others, which, 
while it accepts the admitted facts of equiva¬ 
lence, contends that the relationship in question 
(between food and bodily energy) is not that of 
cause and effect, but mere equivalence. 


38 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

The theory which I am inclined to defend is 
briefly the following: The human body does 
not resemble the steam engine as much as it 
does the electric motor, which at certain times 
is recharged by energy from without. During 
the hours of rest and sleep, the human body is 
similarly charged by some cosmic energy which 
flows into it at such times. This energy is 
merely expended in the various bodily and 
mental activities, but the source of the energy 
is not the food, which only supplies the body 
with a certain amount of heat and replaces 
broken-down tissue. The more tissue which is 
broken down, in work, the more must be re¬ 
placed; consequently a greater amount of food 
must be consumed in order to repair this waste. 
There is, therefore, an equivalence; but this 
equivalence is not that of cause and effect. If 
the strings of a musical instrument were self¬ 
repairing, we might perhaps be inclined to 
think that the material which fed the strings 
was the cause of the music, since in that case 
some measure of the waste would probably be 
discoverable in the debris emitted; and we 
might imagine that the debris was the measure 
of the music, while what it really was was the 
measure of the waste of the strings when they 
were made the instrument of music. If a spade 
is used in digging, the spade wastes in pro¬ 
portion to every spadeful of earth it is made to 
lift. The more it digs, the more it wastes. If 
we could arrange that a stream of fine steel 
particles flowed into the spade, to replace the 
waste caused by each act of digging, we might 
perhaps come to think that these fine steel par¬ 
ticles were the cause of the digging—especially 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 39 

as the quantity of them required would always 
be exactly proportional to the amount of work 
done. Nevertheless, this would be a very in¬ 
consequent assumption. So it would be also if 
we were to infer, because the motors at the 
bottom of the electric tram-car waste as they 
are used by electric energy, as the means of 
doing work, and if we could arrange that this 
waste should be made good by some self-acting 
mechanism—as well might we imagine that the 
steel particles flowing in were the cause of the 
work done, as that the food is the cause of the 
work done by the human body. Yet this is the 
assumption invariably made by modern scien¬ 
tists. 

In other words, food does not cause or create 
the bodily energy—any more than the steel par¬ 
ticles cause the digging or the power contained 
within the electric motor. Food merely repairs 
the body —through which the energy flows; and 
the more work done, the greater the amount of 
food needed, to repair the loss. Hence the 
equivalence, but not the causation! 

Are there any facts which tell in favor of this 
view, as opposed to that commonly held? There 
are several, among which I might mention the 
following: 

(1) Whenever we become tired, as the result 
of the day’s work, we must retire to the bed¬ 
room and not the dining room, in order to 
recover our strength and energy. No matter 
how much food we eat, how much exercise we 
take, how thoroughly we breathe, or how com¬ 
pletely this food material may be oxidized, 
there always comes a time, nevertheless, when 


40 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

we become tired and exhausted, and this exhaus¬ 
tion can only be relieved by rest and sleep—and 
not by adding more fuel, in the shape of food. 
Sleep, therefore, is u very peculiar condition, 
which differentiates the human body from any 
form of steam-engine known to us. It seems 
to show us that there is a great difference be¬ 
tween the method by which the human body 
replenishes its energy, and the ordinary chem¬ 
ical combustion theory, which is applicable to 
the steam engine. 

(2) Many persons, who have become weak¬ 
ened by the onset of some disease, will find that 
their energy is increased, by abstaining from 
food altogether, for a longer or shorter period— 
that is, by fasting. I have seen many cases in 
which the patient was so weak that he was 
hardly able to walk upstairs. Yet, after having 
abstained from all solid food for a number of 
days, he was enabled to walk several miles 
daily, and felt better and stronger than he had 
for years past! This is readily understood by 
students of therapeutic fasting, but, without 
going into the details now, it may be pointed 
out that such an increase of energy could hardly 
be expected, if the source of our bodily energy 
were the food we eat! 

Other arguments might be advanced in sup¬ 
port of this theory, but enough has been said, 
perhaps, to indicate that it is a legitimate in¬ 
terpretation of the observed facts, and that it 
is in accord with the findings of physiological 
science. 

Professor Hans Driesch has advanced other 
views in favor of the vitalistic interpretation, 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 41 

which are to be found in his “Science and 
Philosophy of the Organism,” (2 vols.), and in 
his “History and Theory of Vitalism.” Those 
who are interested in the subject may find an 
exposition of the theory in these works, as well 
as in my own book “Vitality, Fasting, and 
Nutrition.” A good statement of the mechan¬ 
istic view, on the other hand, may be found in 
such works as Jacques Loeb’s “The Dynamics 
of Living Matter,” “The Mechanistic Conception 
of Life,” and Professor Osborne’s “Origin and 
Evolution of Life.” 

Whatever view we may take of the nature 
of life, however, it is certain that of its 
essence little or nothing is known. We know 
life merely by its expressions or manifesta¬ 
tions; but of the invisible Principle itself, lying 
behind, and governing and controlling these 
manifestations, we know but little. It remains 
for the science of the future to determine i 
possible, the precise nature of life. 

THE VEHICLE OF MIND 

We are so accustomed to think of mind as 
being intimately connected with the brain and 
the nervous system that it is almost a shock 
when we realize that this conception is rela¬ 
tively new, and that, until the past two or three 
hundred years, physiologists thought that mind 
had its physical basis or seat in various other 
bodily organs—the heart, the spleen, etc. Now¬ 
adays, the location of the various motor and 
sensory activities of the mental life has been 
carried to such a fine point that it is possible 
to place a finger upon a certain spot or area 


42 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

in the brain, and say “here occurs the sen¬ 
sation of sight,” or “this portion of the brain 
i 3 responsible for the movement of the toes 
on the left foot,” etc. Sensory or afferent nerv¬ 
ous impulses carry sensations from the surface 
of the body to certain centers, and here a 
change of some sort takes place, which oc¬ 
cupies an appreciable time, and which is anal- 
agous to conscious deliberation on the part of 
that nerve center, as though deciding what to 
do. A motor or efferent nervous impulse is 
then sent forth, causing a specific movement, 
representing a reaction to the stimulus in ques¬ 
tion. 

What is the nature of this nervous impulse? 
The general structure of the nervous system 
being so similar to an electric relay system, it 
has been contended, very naturally, that the 
nature of the nervous impulse is electric in 
character. This idea, however, was afterward 
shown to be untrue for the simple reason that 
the rate of conduction was so very different. 
A nervous impulse travels along the fibre with 
a velocity of only about two hundred feet per 
second, while the velocity of light and elec¬ 
tricity, as we know, is slightly more than a 
hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per 
second. The two are, therefore, entirely dis¬ 
similar in character. If an elephant were to 
step upon a sharp object, it would take him 
an appreciable time to react, and lift his foot, 
whereas if the nervous current were electric in 
nature, this reaction ought to be practically in¬ 
stantaneous. 

Dr. Max Mayer, in his book “The Funda- 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 43 

mental Laws of Human Behavior” has this to 
say, regarding the nature of the nervous im¬ 
pulse : 

“It is highly probable that the conduction of 
the excitation is a process of a chemical nature. 
The substance of a neuron, consisting of highly 
unstable organic compounds, must be well 
adapted to the conduction of chemical changes. 
It is also well-known that the conduction of 
chemical changes frequently involves, as by¬ 
products, so to speak, electrical phenomena. 
.What happens is this: A stream of ele¬ 
mentary substance flows—or, whatever it may 
actually do, is imagined to flow—from one end 
of the conductor to the other, and this flow 
or wandering of molecules or “ions,” as it is 
usually called, is accompanied by an electrical 
phenomenon. We are, then, probably justified 
in regarding the conduction of an excitation 
through a neuron as, not identical with, but at 
least analogous to, the wandering of ions 
through a conducting fluid—the electrolyte, to 
use the technical term—of a storage battery.” 

The fact that the nervous current is probably 
chemical in nature does not, however, help us 
to understand the nature of the changes which 
occur within the various nerve-cells of the body, 
—since these changes are, apparently, rational 
or teleological in their action. Especially we are 
no nearer an interpretation of the nature of the 
activities going on within the cerebrum, with 
which thought and consciousness are undoubt¬ 
edly associated. The structure of the human 
brain is incredibly complicated, and the number 
of inter-acting nerve cells is indeed extraor- 



44 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

dinary. Professor E. B. Thorndyke, in his 
“Elements of Psychology,” (p. 151) says: 

“It would take a model as large at St. Paul’s 
Cathedral to make all the neurons in the brain 
visible. A man counting at the rate of fifty 
a minute, working twelve hours a day, would 
take probably over seven-hundred years to 
count all the nerve cells in one man.” There 
are well over ten-thousand million of them in 
the body. 

Such, then, is the complicated nature of the 
nervous mechanism upon which life depends, 
and which is the basis for the manifestation of 
life and mind. Our nervous system, even more 
than any other portion of the human anatomy, 
has been slowly perfected through countless 
ages of evolution, and the comparative growth 
of the nervous system has now been clearly 
traced. Life and mind on the one hand, and 
the nervous system on the other, have some¬ 
how evolved together; but whether life and 
mind have become more complicated and ex¬ 
pansive as the nervous system has evolved 
(materialism), or whether the nervous system 
has become more complex because of the con¬ 
stant urge of higher forms of life-energy, tend¬ 
ing to manifest through it (idealism)—this is, 
as yet, an unsolved question, which only an 
ultimate interpretation of the nature of things 
can decide. A further discussion of this ques¬ 
tion undertaken in the chapter dealing with life 
and mind. 

LIFE AND MIND 

In the year 1886, a little book was published 
entitled “Can Matter Think?” Considerable 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 45 

discussion was stimulated at the time by the 
publication of this book, and others of a sim¬ 
ilar character, dealing with the relationship 
between mind and matter. 

There can be no doubt that the majority of 
the bodily activities can be accounted for on 
purely physical and chemical lines, and there 
are many scientists today who contend that 
every activity of the body can thus be account¬ 
ed for. The body and its activities are regard¬ 
ed as a physico-chemical mechanism. On this 
view, the activities of mind and consciousness 
are the products of brain-action, in the same 
way that other activities of the body result 
from the functioning of certain specific organs 
and their activities. This is the materialistic 
conception. 

The body is certainly composed of matter and 
energy. Is there anything further? Huxley, 
in one of his celebrated Essays, said that it 
was obvious to him that there vxis some “third 
thing”—namely, consciousness. Is this “third 
thing” altogether separate from the other two, 
or is it merely a resultant of special nervous 
energies? 

This question of the inter-relationship of mat¬ 
ter, life, and mind is an extremely interesting 
one. All energy, in itself, is more or less blind 
in its action, but when it is acting toward a spe¬ 
cific end, it seems that a certain amount of 
“direction” is necessarily called into play. Sir 
Oliver Lodge has contended that the import¬ 
ant and distinguishing characteristic of life is 
its ability thus to govern or direct energy— 
which in turn controls matter. He contends 


45 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

that life is not in itself a special energy, but 
that it is merely that which directs or con¬ 
trols it. It is, however, difficult to see how 
anything which is not in itself energy, can con¬ 
trol or direct some other energy. It would 
appear just as difficult for an abstract thought 
to affect a flowing energy, as it would be for 
(say) the idea of a beefsteak to couple-together 
two pullman cars! 

Certainly the matter of the brain cannot in 
itself “think.” There is no more reason why 
a certain specific nervous structure should give 
rise to active consciousness, than that any oth¬ 
er complex living material should do so. The 
question is: Does consciousness somehow arise 
from the flow of the nervous currents within 
the brain? Materialistic science says that the 
activities of the mind are somehow synonymous 
with these nervous currents. Yet there are 
other nervous currents traveling about all over 
the body, which do not give rise to self-con¬ 
sciousness. Why is it that they should do so 
in the special organ of thought, known as the 
brain? 

It must be remembered that mind is not the 
same thing as life. Parts of a body may be 
alive, while other parts of it are dead. After 
a chicken’s head has been chopped off, it often 
gets up and runs about for a half-a-minute or 
more, and will even show certain signs of act¬ 
ive direction of the body, and will pick itself 
up if it stumbles over an object, etc. It is 
well-known, also, that after the conscious life 
of an organism has ceased, its bodily life con¬ 
tinues for some time. This is the so-called 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 47 

“somatic" life of the organism; and various 
tissues and organs die at different rates. The 
life of the body, therefore, is not the same 
thing as its conscious self-existence. 

Let us lead up to our main problem in anoth¬ 
er manner. The principle of the conservation 
of energy says that all force or energy can be 
converted into other energy, and that nothing 
is lost during this process of transformation. 
Heat may be converted into light, chemical en¬ 
ergy into heat, etc. All energies are thus 
transmuted, one into another, and it has been 
contended that life is only one special kind of 
energy, which results from the transformation 
of chemical, thermal, and other energies. The 
energy of the body is said to be derived more 
or less directly from the combustion of fuel 
(food) taken into it, and converted, in the 
body, into living bodily substance, heat, and 
energy. This energy is life-energy . Part of 
this life energy is expended in muscular activ¬ 
ities, part of it in running the internal mech¬ 
anism of the body, and part of it in nervous 
activities. Of these nervous activities one par¬ 
ticular variety is that expended in the process¬ 
es of thought. On this view, thought is said to 
be a particular type or kind of nervous energy, 
derived from other energies, and in turn ca¬ 
pable of being transmuted or re-transforme i 
into them. 

This view has been defended with consider¬ 
able ingenuity by Professor Ostwald, and oth 
ers, and, so far as it goes, nothing can be said 
against it. The only question is: Does such 


48 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

a view of the case go far enough? Does it ac¬ 
tually explain the facts of consciousness? 

The important factor about consciousness is 
that it has, for us, a particular significance or 
meaning. Can “meaning” be accounted for on 
the theory that mental activities are nothing 
more than specific nervous currents? Professor 
William McDougall, in his work “Body and 
Mind,” has contended that meaning cannot be 
thus accounted for. It is something over and 
above the physical content, so to say, of the 
specific nervous current involved. The “mean¬ 
ing” of a thought, he contends, cannot be ac¬ 
counted for on purely physico-chemical terms. 
And, judging from certain obvious analogies, 
this is in fact the case. 

Thus, if you were to receive two telegrams, 
one of which read “Our son is dead,” and the 
second “Your son is dead”, the thoughts and 
emotions aroused in consequence would be of 
an entirely different character. Yet there is 
only one letter (y) different in these two mes¬ 
sages. The physical stimulus on the brain re¬ 
sultant from reading both telegrams must be 
very nearly identical. Yet the internal results 
are very dissimilar. These internal results are 
due to the fact that the significance or “mean¬ 
ing” of the message, to the living consciousness 
is so very different, yet the physical stimuli, 
in the two cases, are almost identical. 

This example'brings home to us the great im¬ 
portance of the inner meaning of thought. 
When we read the printed page of a book, we 
do not only receive certain nervous impulses, 
resulting in turn from light-waves striking the 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 49 

eye; we get in touch with the thought and 
spirit of the author. The printed letteis are 
mere symbols. It is very difficult, therefore, 
fully to account for the activities of conscious¬ 
ness on any purely materialistic view. If mat¬ 
ter cannot think, and energy cannot think, 
what is it that thinks,—since thoughts cer¬ 
tainly exist, and are (for us) the most import¬ 
ant factors in the Universe? 

Yet it is certainly true that mind and brain 
are somehow related. We know that we can 
mix poison in a man»’s blood, and his thinking 
facilities become impaired. On the contrary, 
a man may read a telegram and drop dead,—• 
seeming to show the enormous influence upon 
the body of the mind and the emotions, Some 
sort of relationship or interaction must there¬ 
fore exist between them. What is the nature 
of this relationship? How can mind and body 
be conceived of as influencing one another? 

This is one of the most interesting of all 
metaphysical questions—the relationship of 
mind and body. Various theories have been 
advanced in the past in an attempt to account 
for this relationship. The purely materialistic 
conception (that nothing but matter and energy 
exists) has now been entirely given up, since 
it fails to take into account the very obvious 
reality of consciousness. 

Huxley attempted to account for conscious¬ 
ness by assuming that it somehow followed 
along with, or resulted from, certain specific 
brain activities, and that, just as the shadow 
of a horse accompanies the horse, so thoughts 
and mental activities of all kinds accompany 


50 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

the nervous currents, which play to-and-fro in 
the higher centres of the cerebral cortex. He 
coined the term “Epiphenomenon” to express 
or signify this by-product, so to say, of brain 
activity. The difficulty with this theory is 
that, for us, the important thing is the shadow 
and not the horse! And it is also difficult to 
explain why such a mere by-product should 
ever have come into being in the process of 
evolution. Furthermore, the specific character 
of the relationship between these two (mind 
and brain) is not in the least explained by this 
formula. It merely states the facts. The pri¬ 
mary question still remains: How can a par¬ 
ticular thought (apparently a non-material 
thing) and a particular brain-change (a ma¬ 
terial thing) be related one to another? 

Professor Tyndall saw this difficulty very 
clearly, and, in his “Fragments of Science” 
stated the problem thus: 

“The passage from the physics of the brain 
to the corresponding facts of consciousness 
is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought 
and a definite molecular action in the brain oc¬ 
cur simultaneously, we do not possess the in¬ 
tellectual organ, nor apparently, any rudiment 
of the organ, which will enable us to pass, by a 
process of reasoning, from the one to the other. 
Were our minds and senses so expanded, 
strengthened and illuminated as to enable us to 
see and feel the very molecules of the brain; 
were we capable of following all their motions, 
all their groupings, all their electrical dis¬ 
charges, if there be such; and were we inti¬ 
mately acquainted with the corresponding 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 51 

changes of thought and feeling, we should prob¬ 
ably be as far as ever from the solution of 
the problem: How are these physical processes 
connected with the facts of consciousness? The 
chasm between the two classes of phenomena 
would still remain intellectually impassable.” 

Seeing that such enormous difficulties exist¬ 
ed, then, in the attempt to account for con¬ 
sciousness in this manner, other theories were 
brought forward by way of explanation. Among 
these, we may briefly mention the following:- 

PSYCHO-PHYSICAL PARALLELISM: This 
is the doctrine which was defended by Profes¬ 
sor Munsterberg and others. It contends that 
brain changes and states of consciousness are 
merely coincidental in point of time, and do 
not ever influence each other. Their relation 
is that of coincidence or concomitance, and not 
causation. The two flow along, side by side, 
without in any way interfering with one am 
other. 

As regards this doctrine, it need only be 
pointed out that, were it true, mind and body 
could never influence one another, since they 
are not causally connected. Yet, if there be no 
connection, how is it that they correspond so 
exactly?—for, as William James said, “It is 
quite inconceivable that consciousness should 
have nothing to do with a business which it 
so faithfully attends.” 

PHENOMENALISTIC PARALLELISM: This 
is the theory maintained by Kant, Spinoza, and 
others. It maintains that both brain and con¬ 
sciousness (or mind and body) are but two 
different expressions of one underlying reality 


52 LIFE: IT3 OR T GIN AND NATURE 

—just as the convex and concave surfaces of 
a sphere are but two expressions of an under¬ 
lying reality. As to the nature of this reality, 
Kant and Herbert Spencer were content to call 
it X, or the unknown, while Spinoza maintain¬ 
ed that it was God. 

Analogies which are held to support this doc¬ 
trine are, however, extremely defective; but the 
subject is too lengthy and technical'to elucidate 
in detail here. 

PSYCHICAL MONISM: This doctrine con¬ 
tends that consciousness is the only reality— 
the material world being external appearance 
only. Thoughts are causally connected, but 
not necessarily physical events. (This doctrine 
is thus the exact inverse of epiphenomenalism.) 

In refutation of this theory, it may be point¬ 
ed out that, if brain changes are thus caused 
by, or are the outer expression of, thought,— 
why not muscular changes, and in fact all phy¬ 
sical phenomena throughout the world every¬ 
where:—for we cannot rationally draw the line 
of distinction here. Such is the logical out¬ 
come of the theory—and has in fact been ac¬ 
cepted in this form by Fechner and others. 

While many philosophers are inclined to ac¬ 
cept this view, it may be stated that the phy¬ 
sical scientists are naturally repelled by it, 
and so is common sense. 

SOLIPSISM: The contention of this theory 
is that nothing exists save states of conscious¬ 
ness in the individual. Neither the material 
world nor other minds exist (save in the mind 
of the individual). This doctrine is so opposed 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 53 

to common sense and daily experience that it 
is unnecessary to dwell upon it. 

INTERACTIONISM: (Animism) Here we 

have the world-old notion of mind or soul, and 
body, existing as separate entities, influenc¬ 
ing each other. Mind is here supposed to in¬ 
fluence matter, and utilize it for the purposes 
of its manifestation. Were such a theory true, 
it would of course enable us to accept not only 
the reality of psychic phenomena but the per¬ 
sistence . of individual human consciousness 
after death. The main objection to this doc¬ 
trine is that it postulates a form of dualism, 
which is very obnoxious to many minds! It 
is possible, however, that such a doctrine may 
one day be forced upon us by the gradually 
increasing evidence furnished us by psychical 
research. 

Professor William James, in his little book 
on “Human Immortality,” while admitting the 
undoubted fact that brain and mind are in some 
way related one to another, disputed the idea 
that the nature of this connection was neces¬ 
sarily causal. He contended that it is quite 
possible to assume or believe that the functions 
of the brain are “transmissive,” and that they 
merely transmit or express the flow-of-thought, 
which constitutes consciousness. This view 
was subsequently worked-out in considerable 
detail by Professor P. C. S. Schiller, and to 
some extent by Bergson. On this view, the un¬ 
doubted fact of the connection between brain 
and mind can be accepted, without necessar¬ 
ily accepting, at the same time, the ordinary 


54 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

materialistic explanation which is usually as¬ 
sumed in consequence. 

Summarizing this chapter, it may be said 
that one of the most unique characteristics of 
life, and particularly of the higher forms of 
life, is its ability to express more or less com¬ 
plicated mental activity, resulting in self-con¬ 
sciousness in man. Thoughts do not arise 
from matter or from energy. They represent 
some third form of existence, and activity, dif¬ 
fering from these two. Consciousness is the 
highest manifestation of life, but as to its ori¬ 
gin, destiny, and the nature of its connection 
with the physical body and brain—these are as 
yet unsolved metaphysical questions, the an¬ 
swer to which can only be found by continued 
research in the direction of higher physical 
and psychical science. 

LIFE AND DEATH 

In one sense, it is true that all life has a 
beginning, in another sense, it is not! Each 
individual life apparently begins at the moment 
of conception, and ends at death; yet life itself 
reaches back into the dim past, and of its 
origin nothing certain is known (as we have 
seen in the chapter dealing with the origin of 
life.) We can only think of the ultimate termi¬ 
nation of all life with the end of the world—or 
at least its habitability; yet each individual life, 
as we have said, terminates at death; and if 
any form of life exists after death, that can be 
proved only by psychical research. Paradoxi¬ 
cally, life is infinitely finite—and ceaselessly 
ceasing! 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 55 

Moreover, it is often most difficult to decide 
just when life ends and death begins. The 
recent experiments of Prof. Osterhout have 
shown us that a living thing may be fifty per 
cent alive, and fifty per cent dead, or seventy 
per cent dead and thirty per cent alive, etc. 
Up to a certain point, revivification may take 
place; beyond that limit, life can no longer be 
made to return. This discovery—that life and 
death imperceptibly shade into each other— 
is a very significant one, which gives us much 
food for reflection; for at what point is death 
inevitable, and when may not life be revived, if 
only we know the secret hoio? 

I once saw a very striking experiment, which 
illustrated this in rather a dramatic manner. 
Two living eels were dropped into liquir air; 
that were instantaneously frozen into steel-like 
rigidity. They were then removed from the 
bottom of the jar by means of pincers (they 
had frozen to the bottom) and both held in 
the air. “Now,” said the Professor, “which eel 
shall I drop—the right or the left?” A choice 
having been made, the eel was dropped, and 
broke into a thousand fragments on the stone 
floor—as though it were made of glass. The 
other eel was replaced in the original jar of 
water, and, in a few minutes, was swimming 
about as contentedly as though nothing had 
happened to it! 

Suppose -we had chosen the other eel? Where 
was the “life” of the restored one during the 
period when it was frozen? Assuredly it was 
“dead”—as dead as ever it will be—and yet it 
was restored to life again! To what extent 


56 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

is it thus possible to restore life to a living 
thing, once it has been pronounced dead? 
Surely, life and death are but relative terms, 
and the two glide into one another by imper¬ 
ceptible degrees. Yet there is all the difference 
in the world between a living creature and a 
dead one! 

Prof. Chunder Bose has proved that a certain 
“spasm” occurs at the moment of death, ac¬ 
companied by one of an electrical nature, in 
certain plants studied by him. He says: 

“A time comes when, after an answer to a 
supreme shock, there is a sudden end of the 
plant’s power to give any further response. 
This supreme shock is the shock of death. Even 
in this crisis, there is no immediate change 
in the placid appearance of the plant. Droop¬ 
ing and withering are events which occur long 
after death itself. How does the plant, then, 
give this last answer? In man, at the critical 
moment, a spasm passes through the whole 
body, and similarly in the plant I find that a 
great contractile spasm takes place. This is 
accompanied by an electrical spasm also. In 
the script of the death recorder the line, that 
up to this point was being drawn, becomes sud¬ 
denly reversed, and then ends. This is the last 
answer of the plant. 

“These, our mute companions, silently grow¬ 
ing beside our door, have now told us the tale 
of their life-tremulousness and their death- 
spasm in script that is as inarticulate as they. 
May it not be said that this, their story, has 
a pathos of its own beyond any that we have 
conceived?” (Lecture before the Royal In¬ 
stitution of Great Britain, May 29, 1914.) 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE > 57 

Prof. Sliiro Tashiro, of the University of Chi¬ 
cago, has shown that all living things give off 
carbon dioxide—even seeds which have been 
almost completely desiccated, and are many 
years old. As long as this gas is given off, the 
plant or animal is alive; but as soon as it is 
dead, this ceases. He has proposed in this 
experiment a new test for death—or for life! 
He is careful to point out, however, that this 
is merely a chemical sign, which is the result of 
life activities, and in no wise helps us to under¬ 
stand the nature of life itself. It is merely one 
of its phenomena or manifestations. 

The extraordinary difficulty which we ex¬ 
perience in telling when a thing is alive and 
when it is dead is also illustrated by experi¬ 
ments conducted at the Rockefeller Institute, 
in New York, in which a fragment of a 
chicken’s heart has been kept alive for several 
years,— and is even yet healthy and growing 
actively! For a number of days, this fragment 
of heart pulsated; these pulsations gradually 
ceased, but the fragment continued to live and 
grow. Certain salt-solutions, in which the 
tissue was immersed, rendered this possible. 
Here is a very extraordinary fact, and has 
naturally given rise to much speculation as to 
the role which certain solutions of salts may 
play in the human economy. Loeb and others 
have written extensively upon this subject. 

The recent experiments in “grafting glands,” 
and thereby effecting a certain apparent re¬ 
juvenation in the subject, are also thought-pro¬ 
voking; for to what extent are health and youth 
dependent upon the secretions of these glands? 


58 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

These are all questions which are discussed at 
greater length, however, in the volume in this 
series dealing with the problem of death. That 
and the present book may, perhaps, be regarded 
as more or less companion volumes. 

LIFE’S MEANING AND DESTINY 

If the origin of life is a great, unsolved prob¬ 
lem, so also is the question of its destiny! What 
is the meaning of life! Why are we here? Why 
should animate being exist at all? Why should 
the Universe be in existence? Why should all 
this ever have emerged from a hypothetical 
original state of Nothingness? These are ques¬ 
tions which are bound to attract the attention 
of all thinking minds, at one time or another, 
and call loudly for solution. 

Many answers to this world-old riddle have 
been attempted, two of which represent pre¬ 
cisely opposite and contrary views. These are 
(1) the mechanistic conception; Life has no 
meaning; it is absurd, illogical, futile. Ultimate 
extinction is the lot of all; final resolution into 
dead matter and blind energy. (2) The 
Theological conception: Everything has a hid¬ 
den, yet beautiful, meaning; the soul is im¬ 
mortal, and will ascend to Heaven after passing 
through this Vale of Tears; “God is in his 
Heaven, and all’s well,” etc. These two ex¬ 
treme views—the antitheses of each other—are 
both probably equally far from the truth. A 
rational interpretation of things must lie some¬ 
where between them. 

We have seen that life is, within its own 
sphere, certainly purposeful or “teleological.” 
Life works for its own prolongation, parpetua-. 


Ld'FJfl: ITS ORIGIN ANS> NATURE 59 

tion and betterment. Ever since the appearance 
of life upon our planet, it has been increasing in 
power and complexity; mind has been rising 
higher and ever higher in the scale. To what 
end? If all is to end in nothingness, it is a 
senseless world indeed! 

Newton’s first law of motion tells us that a 
body will remain forever at rest unless some 
force acts upon it, and sets it in motion; but 
that, when once in motion, it will continue 
moving indefinitely, provided no other energy 
acts upon it, and nothing stops it. The move¬ 
ment goes on forever as it is. There is no 
change. (Note that.) But, in the evolution of 
life, we certainly find change; it is progressing, 
becoming more and more complex. Yet, if 
life were a mere blind force, this should not be 
so; there should be no alteration and no im¬ 
provement. Some factor or energy is at work, 
therefore, causing this change and improve¬ 
ment—either an external agency, or some inner, 
invisible power of life. 

We have seen that life must have become 
manifest on this physical plane at some definite 
time in the past; it must discontinue its activ¬ 
ities at some definite time in the future. All 
progress, all evolution, must take place between 
these extreme points. Our world certainly came 
into being at some time in the past, and will 
as certainly die a natural death at some dis¬ 
tant date in the future. This intervening period 
may be many thousands of millions of years; 
but what is that compared to eternity? 

At some time in the past, then, life came into 
being—or, on any theory, commenced its active 


60 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

manifestation. Higher and higher forms of life 
appeared, as the result of gradual evolution. 
Finally, man appeared. Is he the final product? 
Does he represent the final link in the chain of 
evolution? One can hardly think so! It may 
be humiliating to our pride, but there are many 
philosophers, as we know, who contend that a 
superior race will come into being, having a 
type of mentality relatively as superior to 
man’s, as man’s is superior to (say) a dog’s. 
There will be the “Supermen,” possessing super¬ 
consciousness. What may follow this step in 
evolution is still more problematical. 

Why are we here? Why does life manifest it¬ 
self at all? Doubtless the most obvious reply to 
this question is that it is the innate quality or 
property of living matter thus to express and 
perpetuate itself. The desire for expression is 
universal—to live, to create. It is second only 
to self-preservation. Yet, if mere perpetuation 
were the object, and nothing more, what a futile 
world it would be! Many of the lower forms 
of life die immediately they have procreated 
(i. c., the males), while the females lay their 
eggs, which are hatched out into similar living 
creatures, which in turn go through the same 
process and so on ad infinitum and ad nauseam. 
To what end? If there is no evolution, no mean¬ 
ing and no finality to life, it would indeed be a 
curious world in which we live! 

If life has any meaning, it must be a psycho¬ 
logical meaning; we have already seen the grad¬ 
ual perfection of the body, and the expansion or 
the living consciousness, during countless ages 
of evolution. Is the object of being to perfect 


LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 61 

a high spiritual consciousness in man? That 
might be a rational view of the facts, provided 
there were some object in view in thus perfect¬ 
ing it. Perfecting a thing merely to destroy it 
does not show good common-sense. Is there an 
ultimate destiny and utility for consciousness? 
If there be some form of permanence for that 
consciousness—yes! If there be none, it is hard 
to see the reason for its evolution and perfec¬ 
tion. 

How can we assure ourselves of its perma¬ 
nence? Only by obtaining scientific proofs of it, 
and these proofts can come to us only in one 
way. By obtaining specific facts, proving that 
consciousness still exists. And this proof can 
come only by means of psychical research! For, 
apart from such evidence, there is none other; 
monism or some form of modified materialism 
would be in possession of the field. Rightly 
understood and interpreted, therefore, psychical 
phenomena are not merely vain pryings into 
trivial and silly manifestations, but an in¬ 
terpretation of facts upon which a whole cosmic 
philosophy may be built—an interpretation of 
the universe, which is not possible in their 
absence. Such a proof of the higher powers of 
mind and spirit, and its permanence and value, 
would alone permit us to form some rational 
and systematic interpretation of the Universe. 

Yet, if this were true, it may be asked: “Why 
have a physical body at all? Why not persist 
in some spiritual world from the beginning to 
the end of things, without bothering with this 
entangling mass of matter at all?” Fitz Hugh 
Ludlow, in his remarkable book, “The Hasheesh 


62 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

Eater” has proposed an answer to this puzzling 
question. He says: 

“That spirit should ever lose the traces of a 
single impression is impossible. DeQuincy’s 
comparison of it to the Palimpsest manuscripts, 
which is one of the most powerful that even 
that great genius could have conceived, is not 
at all too much so to express the truth. We 
pass, in dreamy musing, through a grassy field; 
a blade of the tender herbage brushes against 
the foot; its impression hardly comes into con¬ 
sciousness; on earth it is never remembered 
again. But not even that slight sensation is 
utterly lost. The pressure of the body dulls 
the soul to its perception, other external influ¬ 
ences supplant it; but when the time of the 
final awakening comes, the resurrection of the 
soul from its charnel in the body, the analytic 
finger of inevitable light shall search out that 
old inscription, and to the spiritual eye no deep 
graven record of its earthly triumphs shall be 
clearer. 

“The benumbing influences of the body pro¬ 
tect us here from much of remorse and retros¬ 
pective pining. Its weight lies heavily upon 
the inner sense, and deadens it to perception of 
multitudes of characters which, to be read, 
require acutest powers of discernment. When 
the body is removed, the barrier of the Past 
goes also. 

“This fact may perhaps be one of the final 
causes, why the body exists at all. Why are we 
not born directly into the spiritual world, with¬ 
out having to pass through a weary preliminary 
experience, hemmed in by the gross corporeal 


LIPD: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 63 

nature? May not the answer be something like 
this? Were the soul, at its lirst creation, in¬ 
troduced directly into the world v/here truth is 
an intuition, and stand in the dazzling light 
of its own essence, the dreadful sublimity of the 
view might prove its annihilation. We ac¬ 
cordingly pass first through an apprenticeship, 
in which we have nothing colossal either to 
learn or to do; and eternal verities dawn on us 
slowly, instead of breaking in like lightning. 
. . . Without this slow indoctrination, the soul 
might have flamed out in dazzling momentary 
irradiance, and then been extinguished in 
eternal nothingness. . . 

That all this is purely speculative, we must 
admit. Such a view was, perhaps, influenced to 
some extent by the author’s own experiments, in 
which he felt assured of the severance of his 
“soul” from his body, under the influence of 
hasheesh. Yet, such drugs have often been the 
means of remarkable interior illumination, and 
great flights of philosophical speculation—wit¬ 
ness Paul Blood’s remarkable pamphlet, “An 
Anaesthetic Revelation,” summarized by Wil¬ 
liam James, in his “Memories and Studies.” Per¬ 
haps Truth may be glimpsed at such times, 
more truly than in our ordinary, wake-a-day 
world. 

And the whole physical Universe? What is 
the meaning of that? Western science has no 
answer. It says: Let us take things as we find 
them, without seeking for ultimate causes. Or¬ 
iental philosophy, on the other hand, has con¬ 
cerned itself greatly with such metaphysical 
speculations. Their belief is that this entire 



64 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 

physical universe of ours is moving in a sort 
of cycle; it becomes active, dynamic, expresses 
itself in form and life, and then gradually be¬ 
comes formless, inactive, static,—in which 
condition it remains for a certain period of 
time before it again becomes manifest—and so 
on, forever, perpetually expressing itself in a 
series of cyclic activities. Whether such an 
idea represents anything like the truth we 
have, of course, no means of knowing—or rath¬ 
er, of proving scientifically. 

At all events, Life has a meaning and a pur¬ 
pose in and for itself. It strives, it perfects, 
it manifests. Whether this constant effort on 
the part of life has any ultimate, cosmic sig¬ 
nificance must depend upon the destiny of life 
itself. Our interpretation of the meaning and 
significance of life will thus depend upon the 
view we take of the nature of the Cosmos; and 
the nature and significance of this will, in 
turn, depend partly upon insight and philoso¬ 
phy, and partly upon scientific researches,— 
which are thus destined to serve as torches to 
illumine the road which we must ultimately 
travel. 



























J 


























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